The Quadling
by 00AwkwardPenguin00
Summary: A one-shot for Halloween. Tim McGee has a strange encounter on a college campus. Rated T for language.


The Quadling  
An NCIS Fanfic  
By CaelumFelis  
Disclaimer: I don't own NCIS or anything associated with it.

**Author's Note: Yes, I know I'm extremely, extremely late with _Line in the Sand,_ but I've been having some issues in the Real World, and I simply don't have the time or energy right now to work on it. Please accept this nice Halloween one-shot as my deepest apology. **

_***NCIS***_

If Tim McGee didn't know better, he'd have thought that he was being watched. But that can't be possible Gibbs is working out logistics with the university administration and campus police, Tony is interviewing college students on one side of the quad, and Ziva is doing the same on the other side. He's been left behind to secure and process the crime scene and wait for Ducky and Jimmy to arrive to take what was left of the poor young Petty Officer back to DC for autopsy. Classes have been canceled, and all of the students have been instructed to stay indoors until further notice.

All but one, it seems.

There's a girl standing just outside the yellow crime scene tape, watching him. She's not very tall, shorter than Sarah, and square jawed, with a cleft chin. Her face is completely devoid of makeup, allowing the acne dotting her forehead and cheeks to be plainly visible. She studies him intently with dark brown eyes, piercing behind small, square glasses in thin black frames. Her dark mahogany hair is pulled back severely, but little whisps of hair still break free, curling around her ears and hairline. Her stance is casual, her hands tucked into the pocket of her blindingly orange hoodie. Even more obnoxiously colored are the loose pajama pants she's wearing they're rainbow tie-dyed. Practically the only normal looking things she's wearing are a pair of worn, black rubber slip-on sandals.

She stares at him, obviously curious but waiting for him to speak first.

"Um… hey," he calls softly, unsure whether or not he should be speaking to the girl in the first place. _What the hell? Maybe she saw something._

"Hey," she replies.

She seems determined to make this as awkward as possible. "I'm …Tim." He's about to say "Special Agent McGee, NCIS", but that just seems even more awkward. Besides, it's unlikely that they're ever going to cross paths again, so why bother with formalities?

"Sam," she says. "You obviously don't go here, Tim. Why are you here?"

_Are you kidding? Do you not see this dead body behind me?_

"I'm… investigating this kid's death," Tim answers simply.

Sam's lips quirk in amusement. "Doesn't look like you're doing much "investigating" to me, Tim," she says. "Looks like you're just sitting and waiting for something to happen."

Tim sighs and smiles. "I am," he chuckles. "I've gathered all the evidence I can here. Now I'm just waiting for our medical examiner and his assistant to show up. His assistant's got a habit of getting lost in a straight line."

"I know a few people like that," Sam smirks. "So while the rest of you guys get to do actual work, you get to sit on your bum and enjoy the scenery."

Tim laughs. "Yeah, something like that." A stiff, chilly wind blows up the quad, and Tim shivers. Sam simply turns her face into the wind, her lips turning up into a small, contented smile.

"Aren't you cold?" Tim asks, pulling his jacket tighter around him. Sam just shakes her head.

"I'm always cold," she replies. "One of the side effects of being me."

Tim frowns, but is stopped from saying anything by Sam, rather unassumingly, ducking under the tape and walking forward. She has a strange sort of gait too stiff and fast to be a casual meander, but too slow and loose to be a stride. She studies the body behind him intently, not at all put off by the rather gruesome sight of the boy's head splattered open like a melon, blood and gray matter sprayed all over the gray boulder the body was resting against. Her expression is impassive, clinical, but there's something in her eyes… sadness? Anger? Tim can't decide.

"Did you know him?" He asks quietly.

"I'd seen him around," Sam replies, not modulating her voice at all. "He doesn't actually go here I think he's got a girlfriend here. This is the Kissing Rock. I've seen him here a few times with a girl, sucking face." Sam wrinkles her nose. "She's not even all that good looking, although I'm not really one to talk. But what's worse is that she's leading him on. I've heard her chattering with all her friends about how she's cheating on him and he doesn't even know it. Little bitch," she snarls. "Girls like that give the rest of us a bad name."

"Do you know their names?"

"Nah, I suck at names," Sam replies flippantly. "I can point her out to you, if you want. Not now, obviously, with the campus on lockdown and you on guard duty, but another time. She always eats lunch in the same place every day."

Tim nods, grinning. This is more information than he'd expected to find just sitting out here in the late fall cold. Then he registers what Sam had said. "If the campus is on lockdown, then what're you doing out here, Sam? Won't you get in trouble?"

Sam smirks, dark eyes flashing mysteriously. "Doesn't matter, the guy who did this is long gone."

Tim starts to nod, but stops. "Wait, what do you mean, long gone? Did you see what happened?"

"Yep," Sam nods. "Dude's sitting out here, enjoying the afternoon, waiting for his cheating bitch girlfriend to show her ugly mug, when this totally random guy walks up the quad from the street, looking dark as a raincloud. He waltzes right up to the sailor, pulls out a handgun, and demands his wallet. Davy Jones isn't fast enough, and Tony Montana puts a round into his head, digs a wallet out of his pocket, and takes off like the hounds of Hell are after him." The expression on Sam's face as she talks is furious, as if she would like nothing more to join the proverbial hounds in the hunt for the shooter's soul.

"Can you describe the shooter?" Tim digs out his notebook and pen.

"Tall, almost as tall as you, so we'll say five eleven, maybe six flat, skinny as a wrink, pale skin, shaggy dark hair, wearing a black hoodie, black jeans, and black combat boots," Sam rattles off, staring off into the distance as though she is looking at him in her mind's eye. "Lots of acne, kind of gangly body, so he's not quite done growing yet. But he's got a scruffy little beard going, so he's definitely old enough to shave, for all that he doesn't. He may be a student, probably a freshman or sophomore. Dark eyes, deep set, with bags big enough for a vacation."

Tim nods as he jots everything down. "Would you be willing to come to NCIS and talk to a sketch artist?"

"Sorry, I can't," Sam replies, looking truly sorry indeed. "But there's a gun shop nearby, over on Grace Street, you can talk to the owner. That's most likely where the gun your shooter used came from. Good luck."

"McGee!"

Tim turns to find Gibbs, Tony, and Ziva all striding towards him, the team leader looking thoroughly harried and annoyed to no end. DiNozzo is glowing, and Tim shudders to think of how many numbers his teammate has gotten in the last two hours. Ziva simply looks uncomfortable, and Tim wonders if she has ever gotten used to the mid-Atlantic winters.

"Ducky here yet?" Gibbs barks out.

"Not yet, Boss," Tim replies, "but I got a description of the shooter, and where he might've gotten his weapon. Sam here " he gestures towards Sam " said she witnessed what happened "

"Uh, Probie? There's no one there," Tony points out, with terrifyingly uncharacteristic gentleness.

" there's apparently a gun shop down the huh?" Tim stops in mid sentence and spins around, to find that the air behind him is void of ridiculously dressed, infuriatingly mysterious teenager.

"Where'd she go?" He wonders, furrowing his brow.

"Who, McGee?" Ziva asks.

"Sam," he answers, turning slowly in a circle, scanning the quad for a short girl in neon clothes. "She said she saw what happened, gave me enough description to paint a picture. Said there was a gun shop on Grace Street where our shooter most likely got the gun."

A pause, and then Gibbs says gruffly, "Didn't see anyone, McGee, either with you or leaving."

Tim frowns, turning to his team. He can see Tony's skepticism slowly evolving into mischief, Ziva's confusion morphing into wariness, and Gibbs' unreadable stare cracking slightly to reveal the worry beneath.

"I'm _not_ lying, and I'm _not_ crazy," Tim growls. However, as he looks down at the soft ground around the crime scene, he can see his footprints, Ziva's, Tony's, Gibbs', even those of the kids who'd found the poor Petty Officer, but none that could come from a pair of black rubber sandals.

"That's not possible," he murmured. He retraced Sam's path, his confusion and apprehension increasing as he searched for physical evidence of his visitor. The ground was untouched, and Tim felt his heart sink.

"McGee, go back to the car, dig up everything you can about our Petty Officer," Gibbs said quietly.

Tim stared at him, feeling the bottom drop out of his stomach. "Boss, I "

"Time's a-wasting, McGee," Gibbs growled, sounding normal again, and Tim gulped and nodded, grabbed his backpack and started to walk back to the agency sedan. Then he remembered what Sam had said, and he turned around.

"Boss, our victim had a girlfriend," he said quickly. "She was cheating on him. Could it be possible that… that the shooter was the other guy?"

Gibbs blinked, then raised an eyebrow. "Find out, McGee."

"Yes Boss."

_***NCIS***_

The owner of the gun shop provides a description that matches almost verbatim the one Sam gave Tim. Tim also finds the girlfriend, who admits to cheating on the Petty Officer, and gives a name to the face. Within a day, they find, arrest, and charge the shooter, wrap up the case, and send it over to JAG.

Tim can't get Sam out of his head. Now that the case is closed, and they're just working on cold ones until they get called out again, he takes the time to create a CGI sketch of her while Abby's on her lunch break. He runs it once everyone clocks out (Tony for a date, Ziva for a self defense class she offered to teach, and Gibbs for another night of bourbon and woodworking), and comes up blank.

"Who are you?" He murmurs, staring at the digital picture.

Gibbs had said when he told them all to go home to take a few days off, as a reward for wrapping up the case so quickly, so he decides to take a trip back to the school.

He drives the two and a half hours out to the town in which the campus is and checks into a hotel for the night. The next morning finds him sitting on the bench in front of the Kissing Rock, watching the crowds of students and teachers moving between buildings, going to and from classes. He sits there for the entire day, eating a lunch he bought that morning at the local grocery store, his proximity to a crime scene barely three days old ensuring that no one bothers him. As the sun begins to set, he becomes more alert, waiting for that tingly feeling of being watched. However, as the sun finally disappears behind the mountains surrounding the town, he sighs and calls it a day.

Maybe he really is crazy.

_***NCIS***_

They return to the university months later, this time investigating the death of a Navy lieutenant's daughter. The body has been dumped at the opposite end of the quad from the Kissing Rock, closer to the street that leads to the rest of the town. Once again, Tim is left alone to document the scene, while the others interview witnesses and network with local LEOs and university officials. Ducky and Palmer won't be arriving for another hour, sooner than last time, but still a while yet.

It's colder now than it was months ago, the ground hard and frozen over, pockets of white littering here and there from the last snowfall. A biting winter wind races through Tim, cutting easily through his coat, for all the extra insulation it's supposed to have.

_The downside of losing weight,_ Tim grumbles to himself, _you get cold a lot more easily._

There it is again. That weird feeling of being watched. Tim sighs and turns to find Sam standing just outside the crime scene tape, looking exactly the same as she did months ago, only now her expression is so fierce that Tim feels a shiver run up his spine that has nothing to do with the winter chill.

"Did you know her?" Tim asks tentatively, remembering their first encounter and her penchant for having him speak first.

Her scowl darkens, and Tim finds himself thinking, _Stupid question._

"Angela Thomas," she growls, ducking under the crime scene tape and coming to stand next to where Tim is crouching, camera up. "Art history major, secondary education minor. Sophomore. Lives in Whitehall Dorm. Dad's Navy, mom's dead. Older sister, younger brother, two cats. Nicest person on the _fucking_ planet."

Tim blinks. Not only has he never heard Sam curse before (granted, his experiences with her are limited, but he knows that much), she's also much, _much_ angrier this time around than she was last time.

_The Petty Officer was only a visitor, seeing his cheating girlfriend,_ Tim recalls. _This girl, Angela… she _lived_ here. _He doesn't know what it means, but he files it away for later.

"Did you see what happened?" He asks.

"She was walking back to her dorm," Sam says, never taking her eyes off of the corpse. Her glasses flash menacingly in the weak winter sunlight. "It was twelve fifty eight and twenty eight seconds. Bastard grabbed her from behind, groped her, sliced open her lower stomach, then slit her throat. Licked the knife, laughing like the Ripper himself, then took off, down South Main Street."

Tim's scribbling frantically, determined to have everything written down before the team comes back and Sam disappears again. She's making it easier for him by keeping her sentences short and clear, without sarcasm or attitude.

_She wants this guy caught,_ Tim thinks as he writes. _Even more than we do, somehow. It's personal for her._

"Did you see what he looked like?" He asks.

"Mid height, stocky, not fat but not skinny either, dark hair, dark eyes, jowly, definitely middle aged, pale, just really, ridiculously normal looking, except for that mad glint in his eye," Sam rattles off. "He was missing a finger, though, his left ring finger."

Tim nods, still scribbling. Hopefully between this description and any fingerprints he left on the girl's body, they'd be able to ID him quick. This was _not_ somebody Tim wanted running around loose.

"That all?"

Sam nods, looking at Tim with eyes blazing. "When you find him, tell him Samara Rapp wants his soul," she growls, her voice deepening until it resonates in Tim's very bones.

"Probie!"

Terrified and disoriented, Tim whirls around to find Tony racing down the quad toward him, looking concerned.

"Tony?" He whispers, before the lights go out and he collapses in a heap.

_***NCIS***_

Gibbs sends him home for the week, after Ducky pronounces him suffering from exhaustion and low blood pressure. Tim fights the order desperately, Sam's voice echoing in his head, her rage and fire pushing him to fulfill her demand, but Gibbs is firm.

He doesn't want to see Tim at the office for any reason for five days.

Tim is positive he's going nuts. He sees Sam everywhere, feels her dark brown eyes behind their innocuous eyeglasses boring into him with every move he makes, knowing that he's not fulfilling his end of this bargain that they seem to have made. She charged _him_ with finding this murderer, not Gibbs, not the team, _him._ Timothy McGee.

_When you find him, tell him that Samara Rapp wants his soul._

_When._ Not _if_. _When._

His first day of house arrest, he looks up her name. _Samara_, Hebrew for guardian. _Rapp_, Germanic Hebrew, meaning dark-haired or raven-like.

Dark-haired guardian. How fitting.

For the next three days he searches tirelessly. Now that he has a full name to put to the sketch he'd made months before, he runs them both against every database he can think of, every one that he has access to from his home computer, and a few that he "borrows" access to, as well.

The fourth day, he's pulled from his desk and his search by a knock on the door. He considers not answering, pretending not to be home, but then a voice calls out.

"Hey, McHermit! You gonna let me in?"

Tim growls and stalks over to the door, throwing it open with all the force his restlessness and frustration provides. He smirks grimly when Tony takes a step back in surprise, not expecting the speed at which Tim had acquiesced, nor the strength of his… _non greeting_.

"What the hell do you want?"

"Hello to you too, McGee," Tony replies. "Just wanted to let you know… there's been another murder at that school. Not much to do with us, but the local yonkels wanted your help. Seem to think you've got some kind of psychic touch."

"Gibbs put me on leave," Tim growls.

"Yeah, from _NCIS_," Tony argues. "C'mon, McMindReader. Even I have to admit that you seem to have some kind of connection to the place."

_Yeah, and boy is she going to be mad,_ Tim thinks miserably.

"Look, I'll go with you, hell, I'll even drive you," Tony continues, peering at Tim worriedly. "I know you're not really up to snuff right now, but these guys are desperate. Apparently this guy's been killing off and on for months now, but he's speeding up, and moving from homeless people to college students. They need your help, Tim."

_They need your help, Tim._

_When you find him, tell him Samara Rapp wants his soul._

This is the chance he's been waiting for, the chance to redeem himself in Sam's eyes, to get her to stop haunting him.

"Fine," Tim sighs. "Let me go get dressed."

_***NCIS***_

They're halfway to the campus before Tony speaks again. "What've you been doing these past few days, McSkinny? You look like death."

"What the hell did you expect, DiNozzo? I've been _sick_," Tim snaps, thrusting as much sarcasm into the word as he can.

"No, you haven't, Probie," Tony replies gently. "I know you haven't. Listen, I know I've been ragging on you for the last few months, but I don't mean anything by it. You're my partner, McGee, and I hope I can consider you my friend as well. I've been worried about you lately. You're not answering your phone, your email, hell, Abby even sent you a post-card through snail-mail. You look like you haven't been sleeping, or eating. You haven't been outside in a few days. What's going on with you, McGee?"

Tim sighs. "Just drop it, Tony. It doesn't really concern you, anyway."

"Hey," Tony growls, pulling over and turning to look Tim straight in the eye. "When it concerns my partner, my teammate, my _friend_, then it concerns me, got it?"

Tim looks away, out the window. "Yeah," he whispers.

Tony still glances at him, all through the rest of the drive, but Tim falls asleep, for the first time in days. His dreams are full of Sam, cursing him, accusing him, her dark eyes burning his soul.

A gently firm hand shakes him awake, and he realizes that they've stopped moving. "Up and at 'em, Probie," Tony's voice calls. "You're on."

They climb out of the car, Tim wrapping his trench coat more tightly around him. He's always cold now, he realizes. Two detectives approach them, looking grim.

"Timothy McGee?" One of them asks. "I'm Detective Brown, this is Detective Nelson. We were told that you're some kind of psychic. We were hoping you'd be able to help us out here."

Tim glances at Tony, who nods back with an encouraging smirk. "What've we got?" He asks, trying to keep the depression out of his voice.

The two detectives lead them over to a building at the bottom of the quad, to an archway connecting it to the building next to it. Behind there, they find themselves in a small flagstone courtyard, where the body of a teenage boy, barely eighteen years old, lies twisted and broken, his throat and stomach slashed.

Tim swallows heavily, scrounges up that cool professionalism he had to cultivate when he first became an NCIS agent.

"The three of you need to leave," he says, remembering the circumstances of his last two "meetings" with Sam. "I'll call you back when I have something."

"Tim " Tony starts, but Tim shoots him a glare Gibbs would be proud of, and the senior field agent sighs and nods. "You need anything McGee, you holler. You understand me?" He returns Tim's glare with one of his own, and Tim smirks slightly and nods, the first smile he's seen out of the guy all day.

The detectives are even more reluctant to leave than Tony, but the Italian takes each by the arm and drags them away, declaiming loudly about his need for coffee and a sitrep.

Tim squats down, studying the body, and waits for the inevitable, which comes faster than he had ever thought possible. He glances up to see Sam perched like a cat on the low stone wall surrounding the courtyard, her gaze every bit as furious as Tim had seen in his dreams.

"I'm sorry," he says, and he knows immediately that it's not nearly enough.

"That's the second kid who's died on my campus in a single week," she snaps, leaping off the wall and stalking towards him. "I expected you to find the killer the _first_ time. I gave you everything I saw, everything I knew, and _he's still out there!"_

"I know," Tim murmurs, hanging his head. "I got taken off the case."

"_I don't fucking care!"_ She snarls. "_You_ were the one who was supposed to find him. _You _were the one who was supposed to bring him down. _You_ were the one who was supposed to bring me his _soul!"_

Again, Tim can only murmur platitudes and pray she doesn't hurt him more than she already has. He's developed a splitting headache, and he's shivering violently, as his insides slowly freeze colder than the air and wind around him.

"Tim!"

For the first time in his memory, Sam disappears before his very eyes, but not without a ferocious snarl. Tim can't bring himself to care, though. He falls sideways, curled into a ball, so cold he can't think straight, so cold he can barely _breathe._ He hears Tony call out again, but can't make out the words, can't force his frozen lips into coherent shapes to answer him. All he can do is moan weakly in relief as blessedly warm hands reach him, feel his neck for a pulse, press gently against his cheeks and forehead. Strong, warm arms wrap around him, gently bring him upright and press him against a broad, firm chest in a frantic bid to bring his core temperature back up. Tim snuggles deeper into the warmth, shaking like a leaf, as his eyelids are dragged down by fifty pound weights.

"No, Probie, don't go to sleep, stay with me," Tony begs him, but Tim can't fight the exhaustion anymore, and darkness falls.

_***NCIS***_

His body tells him that he's warm, both inside and out, but Tim still feels frozen stiff. He's lying in a bed, a hospital bed, he can smell the antiseptic and hear the beeping of the heart monitor. He can also hear Tony quietly talking on his cell phone, his tone tense and worried.

"… moderate hypothermia topped with very mild malnutrition and good old fashioned exhaustion… …He just kind of keeled over, Boss, I really don't know why. One minute he's just kind of standing there, talking to nothing, and then he just fell over… …Tox screen was normal, nothing out of the ordinary in his system, not even a beer. They ran every other test they could think of, but everything came back completely normal. For all intents and purposes, he was just out in the cold for too long… …I know, Boss, but I gotta tell ya, something about all of this is really, really hinky. I don't like it one bit… … No, Boss, I'm not leaving him here. I'm not leaving him by himself, not until we figure this out… …We've both got some leave time saved up, I don't think Probie's taken a day off since he started… … Thanks Boss."

Tony closes his phone and Tim hears him sit down in the chair next to his bed. He hasn't opened his eyes yet, praying to go back to the oblivion he'd just exited, but no such luck. He sighs in defeat and opens his eyes.

The first thing he sees is Tony's handsome face twisted into a concerned scowl, hazel green eyes glaring at him.

"You got some 'splainin' to do, Probie," he growls, hitting the call button on his bed. "But that's gonna have to wait until the doc checks you out."

Tim submits to the exam without a word or even any visible protest- he simply stares at his hands in his lap as the doctor pokes, prods, mutters, and mumbles, and Tony never takes his eyes off of him. Finally the doctor leaves, and Tony leans forward.

"Okay, McGee, spit it out," he growls. "What the hell happened back there? What the hell's going on with you?"

Tim sighs and stares out the window at the gently falling snow. "Why should I tell you anything? It's not like you'll believe me anyway."

"Tim, I don't know if you've noticed, but you're in the g-ddamn _hospital_!" Tony says desperately. "Do you have any idea how worried I was? You just fell over! You wouldn't answer me, and you were colder than the snow! And then we come here, and all the doctors are like, "Oh, it's just hypothermia, he'll be perfectly fine", but you and I both know that that's crap! If you're really gonna be okay, you wouldn't be looking like the world is gonna end!"

Tim turns and studies his teammate. Tony's eyes are wide, scared, he doesn't have the usual mask on that shields his visual emotions. He's laying himself bare for _Tim_, to prove to him that he's as worried as he says he is.

"That first case we had there… the Petty Officer who was killed by the guy his girlfriend was cheating on him with? This girl… Sam… she gave me the shooter's description, she told me about the cheating girlfriend, and the gun shop… everything. She said she wouldn't come to NCIS, and when you guys came back, I turned my back on her for a split second, and she disappeared. Into thin air. And she didn't leave footprints, or any kind of trail. She was just gone."

Tony says nothing, and Tim's grateful for it. "I tried to find her in the university records, I ran the picture I'd made of her against every database I could think of. Everything came back negative. According to… everything… Sam doesn't exist. And yet, I saw her again last week, when the lieutenant's daughter was killed. She gave me the exact time of the attack, down to the second, a picture perfect description of the killer …and apparently charged _me_ with finding him."

Tony frowns and speaks for the first time. "What do you mean, _charged_ you?"

Tim shrugs, feigning nonchalance despite the fact that he feels anything but. "She looked me in the eye and said, "When you find him, tell him Samara Rapp wants his soul." I could feel her voice in my bones, and then you yelled, and I passed out."

Tony nods, although he still looks a bit confused. "So what happened today?"

"Gibbs kicked me off the case, and the killer struck again," Tim says. "Sam was really, really mad… she wanted _me_ to stop him. She… she said that… that it was my fault that the boy was killed. Because I didn't stop the killer." He's cold again, and shivers. Tony tucks another blanket around him, but it doesn't help. The cold is inside, and no amount of blankets will make it go away.

"Tony," he whispers, "I think I'm being haunted."

_***NCIS***_

He's checked out of the hospital the next day, supposedly healthy, but still feeling frozen solid. Tony takes him back to the hotel he'd stayed at the night before, where Ziva is waiting for them with a duffel bag each of clothes. She hugs Tim tight, saying nothing, but Tim can feel her concern and is grateful as it warms him up slightly.

"Okay, McGhostbuster, what's next?" Tony asks after Ziva leaves. Tim has changed into a pair of jeans and an MIT t-shirt, and is sitting on his bed with his laptop.

"We need to find this murderer, that's the only thing that's going to appease Sam," Tim sighs. "I'll work on that, while you talk to people and see what you can find out about her."

Tony blinks, then shakes his head wildly. "No way, no can do, Probilicious," he says. "I'm not letting you out of my sight for a single minute. We finish this thing together, and then go home and get spectacularly drunk."

Tim smiles wanly, absurdly grateful that Tony is willing to face this hell with him. Sam's furious face flashes in his mind's eye, and he can feel frost settling in his bones once more.

_Just give me a bit more time,_ he begs her silently.

The pair of them get to work, reviewing the case notes from the Thomas case that Tony had brought. Tim finds the description of the killer that Sam had given him, and uses it to create a mock-up of the killer's face to show to witnesses. He made sure to include a note about his missing finger.

They grab lunch, then head back to the campus to try and get more information. They learn from campus police that the killer's name is Jackson Crane, causing Tony to overload his own brain with Jack the Ripper and Scarecrow jokes. Tim keeps himself wrapped up tightly in his coat, though it does nothing to chase away the chill that settles in his bones as he and Tony walk the sprawling campus.

Tim agrees to Tony's ridiculous request to have dinner in one of the campus dining halls, and they sit down to plates heaping with cafeteria specials. He shakes his head at his partner's bizarre desire to relieve his college days, and the pair relax after a long day of investigating.

Tim's ears prick up when he hears some students nearby gossiping about the latest murder.

"I heard the Quadling's seriously pissed off this time," one boy says. "She put one of the investigators in the hospital with hypothermia."

"You sure the moron wasn't just out in the cold for too long?" Another boy asked skeptically.

"No, my girlfriend's roommate's best friend's boyfriend said he saw the whole thing," the first boy jabbered excitedly. "The stiff was right outside his dorm, and the investigator was just standing there talking to air when this massive whirlwind kicked up in the courtyard, and when the wind was gone, the guy was lying on the ground, blue as an ice cube!"

"You sure it was the Quadling?" One girl asked.

"He swears it! You know that every time a student is killed on campus, the killer is caught within hours," the first boy replied. "A guy on my floor has a cousin in the police force here, and he says that the Quadling's practically a member of the force! Only a few detectives ever get to see her, but everyone knows about her."

Tim's heard enough by now, he stands and approaches the table. "Excuse me, I couldn't help overhearing your conversation," he says, "but could you tell me more about this "Quadling"?"

"Who're you?" The second boy asks, frowning.

"Special Agent Timothy McGee, NCIS," Tim replies, flashing his badge. "I was a member of the team assigned to investigate Angela Thomas's murder, and I was asked to consult on the most recent death."

"You're the guy the Quadling's so pissed at," the first boy declares, eyes wide. "Dude, that's some crazy shit you're in. You don't screw with the Quadling."

"What can you tell me about her?" Tim asks.

"She's a campus myth," the girl sniffed disdainfully. "A ghost story to scare freshman with."

"Shut up, Kasey," the first boy growled. "The Quadling's like the guardian spirit of the school— whenever something happens to put students in danger, she's the one to make sure whoever or whatever's responsible for it pays."

"Nobody knows who she is," the second boy says. "The story goes that she's the daughter of the first university president, way back before the Revolutionary War, who died when she tried to protect a student from being attacked on the quad, but no one can find any records of her anywhere. Over the years, stories have been told about how a ton of student deaths were prevented by completely random things."

"It's said that she only actually appears to people who are in charge of keeping students safe, like police officers and firemen and ambulance workers and the like," the first boy continues. "Everyone who's ever seen her says she appears dressed like a student, and never speaks unless spoken to. Otherwise, she just moves things around and stuff, but only if someone's in danger. There was one time an elevator cable was about to snap in one of the dorms, but no one knew anything was wrong. Then the elevator simply stopped working, and when Maintenance finally got in to see what the problem was, they found the fraying cable. If one more person had gotten on that elevator, the whole thing would've gone crashing down. Everyone in that dorm was convinced that the Quadling had possessed the elevator and made it stop working."

"She also plays pranks on bullies, and asshole professors," the second boy adds. "General consensus is that she's right up there with Casper, but you do _not_ want to piss her off. She's been known to drive people nuts if they don't deliver on what she asks of them."

Tim nods, mind whirling, and thanks them before heading back to the table he and Tony are sharing.

_***NCIS***_

Tim doesn't sleep that night. He's awake all night, babysitting the BOLO he's put out on the sketch of the serial killer he'd made from his notes on the Thomas case. Since he only has his laptop and cell phone to work with, as well as the motel's crappy internet service that keeps flickering in and out, he has to manually reconnect to the WIFI every time it winks out, or else he won't receive any alerts the BOLO receives. It's a pain in the ass, but it's either that or Sam's furious dark eyes and menacing order haunting his dreams.

He finally gets a hit at seven thirty AM, while Tony is in the shower. Crane has been spotted in the local 7-11, buying beer and a pack of cigarettes. The store is less than a block away from the campus, and three blocks from the motel he and Tony are staying in. Tim grabs his gun, badge, and coat and races out the door, shouting for Tony to follow in the car.

He flat out runs the three blocks to the store, and arrives just as Crane is exiting. Crane takes one look at Tim and bolts, dropping his beer and cigarettes onto the ground.

"NCIS, STOP!" Tim shouts, running after him. Crane just runs faster, and Tim grits his teeth and forces his feet to _move_.

The killer is heading for the campus, which gives Tim an idea. He draws his SIG and yells, "Crane, last chance! Stop or I'll shoot!"

Crane doesn't even acknowledge him, and Tim aims and pulls the trigger. The bullet whizzes by Crane's left knee, missing the material of his grubby jeans by inches, causing the murderer to yelp and abruptly change direction. Tim smirks and follows, subtly herding Crane with purposefully missed but close shots. Within minutes, they're running up the quad, and Tim finally puts a bullet in Crane's knee, causing him to fall with a scream.

Before he can get up, Tim is behind him, holding the gun to the back of his head. His right hand fumbles for the handcuffs in his coat pocket.

"Jackson Crane, you're under arrest for the murders of Angela Thomas and Dennis Weber," he pants. He recites the Miranda warning as he handcuffs Crane, but doesn't let him get to his feet when he's finished.

There's still one more person Crane has to face before he's taken away.

Tim forces back a shiver as the mountain wind picks up, and he blinks away the tears that well up when the chilling wind hits his eyes. Sam is standing a few feet away, wearing a simple black dress with a full, floor length skirt that would've looked right at home in a museum. Her hair is loose, falling around her shoulders in dark waves and tendrils. Black framed pince-nez perch on her nose, and her brown eyes have darkened to black as she glares murderously at Jackson Crane.

"Jackson Crane," she growls, and the tiny hairs on the back of Tim's neck rise at the absolute rage echoing in the spirit's voice, "you have killed two young people under my aegis, with no regard for their lives or their worth as human beings. What do you say in your own defense?"

Crane simply snarls, looking and sounding even less human than the powerful being before him. Tim says nothing, simply keeping a firm hand on the monster's shoulder to keep him from moving.

Samara Rapp, the Quadling, the guardian angel, releases a feral scream in response, a sound that vibrates in Tim's very bones, and an icy wind kicks up, lifting Samara's hair and causing her skirts to billow wildly. She raises her arms, and her whole body lifts off the ground as her eyes burst into white flame. The sky boils black with roiling clouds, and the trees lining the quad sway and tremble wildly as the unearthly wind generated by Samara Rapp's rage rips around the three of them.

"_Jackson Crane, in forcefully taking the lives of two children with no remorse, you have now forfeited what soul you have left to me!"_ Samara roars, screams, shrieks, there are no words Tim can use to describe the sound that rip into his very soul like white hot knives, freezing and burning him inside and out, as the Quadling claps her hands over her head, the sound of the impact echoing through the campus like a cannon shot, and white lightning arcs down from the skies and strikes Jackson Crane in the center of the forehead, and Tim barely gets away in time before the murderer of teenagers, of children, of helpless people without homes, is consumed by pure white flame with a pain filled scream.

Tim squeezes his eyes shut and turns away. He's not a religious man in any sense, but even he knows the folly of viewing with mere mortal eyes the work of divine beings. Sound roars in his ears, time has ceased to mean anything as Tim flounders in a sensory overload the likes of which he would be emphatically grateful never to experience again.

And then… silence.

Tim is aware that he is shaking, trembling like a leaf in a tornado, and he waits for a few seconds before gingerly lifting his head to see Jackson Crane kneeling exactly where he'd last been, without a single mark on him, and Samara Rapp, the Quadling, the guardian angel, standing a few feet away, dressed back in her blinding orange hoodie and ridiculous rainbow pajama bottoms, hands tucked casually in the large pocket of the sweatshirt, and hair severely pulled back into a thick ponytail. She looks, once again, for all the world like a college freshman, but Tim knows now the power locked in that unassuming form.

"Well done, Timothy McGee," she says, a proud smirk crossing her face. "Thank you for your service to me."

Tim blinks. "What happened to him?" He asks dumbly, glancing at Crane still kneeling beside him.

"I have taken his soul," Sam replies cheerfully. "He's nothing more than a shell now, incapable of even stringing a few words together, much less killing anyone. This is the price he pays for taking the lives under my protection so carelessly."

Tim doesn't know what to say to that, so he says nothing.

"Tim!" Tony's voice echoes up the quad from the street, and Tim blinks in surprise.

"It is time for you to return, Timothy McGee," Sam says gently. "You have done me a wonderful service, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I release you now. Go in peace."

Tim blinks again, feeling something inside of him release suddenly, and when his eyes open, Sam is gone, and Tony is trotting up the quad, looking frustrated.

"Jesus, McEager, would it have killed you to wait five minutes for me to not be naked?" Tony growls good naturedly.

Tim smiles, feeling lighter than he has in months. The gray cloud cover that had been masking the skies for the past few days is clearing up, revealing cerulean blue.

Tony is staring at him a bit warily, but with a tiny smirk of his own. "I take it Emily's been exorcised?" He quips.

"In a sense," Tim replies. "Let's go home, Tony."

Tony shrugs, and the pair of them frog march the vegetative Crane down the quad, towards the street where the car is parked.

Fin.


End file.
